


Pity and Piety

by SunMoonAndSpoon



Category: Fruits Basket
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 07:54:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12008370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunMoonAndSpoon/pseuds/SunMoonAndSpoon
Summary: “Akito doesn’t want our pity, he wants our piety. And he doesn’t deserve either one.”When Akito coughs up blood, and Hatori isn't available, Tohru and Yuki call the Sohma Clinic despite Akito's commands. This brings to light some disturbing history about Akito and the Sohma Clinic. It also brings up questions about Yuki's obligations to Akito as a god, and his obligations toward both Akito and himself as human beings.





	Pity and Piety

**Author's Note:**

> In this story, Akito will be referred to as “he.” This is because it takes place prior to the big reveal about Akito’s actual gender, and the story is being narrated by Yuki, who is unaware of this at the time. 
> 
> This was written during a reread of the manga, which is still in progress. I was heavily into the Fruits Basket fandom 15 years ago, so it’s possible that some details are misremembered. If this is the case, I would prefer not to be informed. Other than that, comments are welcome. 
> 
> This story depicts physical abuse, including hitting, slapping, kicking, and hair-pulling. It also describes medical abuse, including an attempted forced surgery. Please proceed with caution.

Yuki can pour tea. He can’t brew it properly, the way Akito likes it, but Tohru can. Akito will find some reason to complain about the way she made it, but Tohru can make it and Yuki can pour it and Akito will have tea. Which means that they’ve done something to help him. 

 

Hatori is unreachable. Shigure thinks it’s because his cell phone doesn’t get service when he’s out in the country. Right now he’s doing out-family medical work, generating an income for the Sohma. He’ll be back in three days. 

 

Kyo and Shigure have gone to find Hatori and bring him back before then. Yuki and Tohru are to remain here and make sure he doesn’t die. Akito isn’t pleased with this arrangement, but he doesn’t hate it enough to bring the god hammer down. Or, at least, he lacks the energy.

 

Yuki has no idea how to make sure Akito doesn’t die. 

 

It isn’t a major problem. Or anyway, they think it’s not. They don’t know, not really, not without Hatori here. 

 

It looks like a cold. A cold on Akito looks like double pneumonia on someone else, but if Akito had double pneumonia he’d be comatose. Yuki is trying not to worry about catching it. He is trying not to worry about what will happen to him if Akito dies on his watch. Or at all. He is trying to walk softly around Tohru’s anxiety, to step aside gracefully so she can tiptoe around his own. 

 

Tohru is banging pots in the kitchen, preparing rice gruel. 

 

Akito is calling Yuki into the living room. His voice so soft it barely carries, but Yuki hears him. He has always been listening as hard as he can. 

 

He walks into the living room. Kneels, dutifully, beside Akito’s futon. Places the tea on the little side table next to his head. Akito’s face is obscured by a surgical mask, and his futon is littered with used tissues. He’s buried under half the blankets in the house. Most of them are Shigure’s. Yuki doesn’t ask why.   
  
He does ask Akito how he’s feeling.   
  
Akito rolls his eyes. Coughs viciously into a curled fist and asks Yuki how he _thinks_ he’s feeling.  

  
“You must be feeling it too, at least a little,” he croaks.   
  
“Yes, of course,” says Yuki, even though he doesn’t. Even though Akito, surely, must know that he doesn’t. Empathy that deep was never part of the curse and they both know it. Akito insists that they feel what he feels, but the connection isn’t bone deep, muscle deep, organ deep. Yuki watches Akito sweat and shake with the flames of his fever, hears the air crackling and whistling in his swollen sinuses. He does not feel any of this in his own body. Which, he knows, is a deep betrayal of Akito the God. It’s the kind of thing that would have gotten him whipped in the past.

 

Tohru appears with a bowl of rice gruel. It’s one of her cute bowls, the pink one with round kittens wearing bow ties. Akito’s lip curls in disgust.  
  
“Cats,” he rasps. “Couldn’t you have found a better animal?” 

 

“I love cats,” says Tohru, her voice bland and pleasant. There’s a tightness around her eyes that wasn’t there before.   
  
“Of course you do,” spits Akito. Injecting venom into his voice propels him into a coughing fit. The words _serves you right_ flash in Yuki’s mind, but he shakes them off. Has to, because he has to reply to the next thing Akito says. He’s asking, “how do I know this garbage you made isn’t poisoned?”   
  
Tohru’s eyes widen, and she shouts, flustered and waving her hands, that it never would have occurred to her to poison anyone’s food, that she doesn’t even know _how_ to do that, and if she did, she certainly never _would_. Then she says that, perhaps her mother knew how to poison people, because she was in a gang, but she was also a good person and certainly wouldn’t actually _do it_ , and anyway she never taught Tohru how. Her words peter out. A red flush erupts in her cheeks. She bites her lip, traces the grain of the floorboards with a fingernail.   
  
Akito sits up, barely supported by his rickety spine. 

 

He picks up the bowl of rice gruel. Lets the hot ceramic burn his hand for a moment.

 

Then, abruptly, he hurls it in the direction of Tohru’s head. Yuki throws himself in front of her, lets the bowl graze his cheek before it clatters to the ground. It doesn’t break, just spills a little of the rice gruel.   
  
Akito stands up, shakes Shigure’s blankets from his body.   
  
“How _dare_ you,” he says, as acerbically as his cold-trashed voice will allow. He leans over Yuki and Tohru, who are kneeling on the floor. His left arm raised like he’s getting ready to strike. Yuki’s hand reaches for Tohru’s, but he pulls it back. Stares up at Akito with icy sweat dripping down his neck.  
  
“You are my _subject_. If I choose to punish someone, you have _no right to…_ n-no r-right…to…” Akito’s voice trails off. He inhales, sharply, and then snaps forward in a spine-twisting sneeze.   
  
The face mask seems to have caught the bulk of the mess, but Akito’s arm stays slung across his nose and mouth all the same. 

After a moment of silence, Akito snaps, “stop staring at me and get me a tissue.” Tohru scrambles to her feet, grabs a box of tissues from their spot next to Akito’s futon. Akito snatches it from her without saying thank you. Yuki bites his lip and tries not to care. If this were Kyo, he’d be yelling at him to be more polite to Tohru. The criticism bubbles in his throat, gets stuck there.  
  
Akito tries to continue his ranting, but he’s cut off ten seconds later by a coughing fit that sounds like all the air being sucked out of his lungs with each spasm. Blood appears like rubies falling from his Holy mouth. Or like blood. It’s just blood. Akito is a god but Akito is a human being and he has blood. 

 

“We have to call Shigure-san,” says Tohru, striding toward the phone. 

 

“Honda-san, calling him won’t accomplish anything. He probably doesn’t even have service right now if he’s met up with Hatori.”  
  
“B-but…” Tohru’s eyes slide toward Akito, who has collapsed back onto the futon, wheezing and choking into a pillow that was stolen from Shigure’s bed. “We can’t just let him cough up blood and not do anything. Can’t we take him to a hospital?”  
  
“We can take him to the Sohma Clinic if it gets really bad…”   
  
“N-no…” groans Akito. “The Sohma Clinic can rot in hell. Hatori is the only…doctor…I’ll…” He tops talking, catapults into another coughing fit that leaves him gasping, hand clutching his chest.   
  
“This isn’t an emergency,” says Yuki.   
  
“It looks like an emergency to me!” says Tohru. “He’s coughing up blood! That means that he probably has pneumonia. If he delays treatment too long he could die.” She looks at Akito, eyes wet with sympathy. “I’m so sorry, Akito-sama, but we _have_ to take you to that clinic.”  
  
“Like hell are you taking me anywhere,” he gasps, each word punctuated with coughs. He stands up again, meanders over to the back of the room, and plasters himself against the wall. “Yuki, if she comes anywhere near me, I _order you_ to restrain her. No one’s taking me to that fucking clinic. _No one.”_

 

“Yuki-kun, we _have_ to take him,” Tohru whispers, face red and hands curled into fists. “What’s the phone number for the clinic? Please tell me, or call them yourself if you can’t tell me. We’re responsible for making sure Akito doesn’t die! _Please_ , Yuki-kun, we can’t let him die.”   
  
Fresh tears bubble in her eyes. She grabs his hand, folds it into hers. _“Please,”_ she says. “Please.”   
  
Yuki bites his lip, turns the issue over in his head. On the one hand, Tohru could be right. Maybe the blood dribbling down the corners of Akito’s mouth really is a death knell. Maybe the right thing to do is take him for treatment.   
  
On the other hand, God said not to call. God’s word is absolute. Especially God’s word about his own body. 

 

Yuki is tired of listening to God. Try as he might, he can’t make Akito’s panicked edicts mean anything to him. Right now, he cannot force himself to care that Akito doesn’t want to go to the clinic, or even whether Akito lives or dies. He could care, perhaps, if he could get the image of Akito’s hands clutching a horsewhip out of his mind. If he could get Tohru’s hands out of his mind—Tohru’s hands chopping carrots in the kitchen, Tohru’s hands darting like panicked butterflies, Tohru’s hands squeezing his in desperation—those hands take priority. Tohru needs Yuki to call the Sohma Clinic, so Yuki will. 

 

Akito isn’t having it. He storms over to Yuki, hands outstretched to snatch the phone from his hand. Halfway across the room, his legs wobble and weaken, and he sinks to his knees, coughing. Blood dribbling down his chin.   
  
Before Akito can get up again, Yuki calls the clinic and lets them know that they need transport. It takes less than five minutes for them to arrive, and in that time Akito doesn’t manage to calm his breathing well enough to stand up and do something about it. Tohru tries to rub his back through the coughing fit, but Akito elbows her off before her hand makes contact. Yuki just sits there, watching. Thinking that Akito gasping and choking and clutching his throat somehow makes up for all the times Akito terrified Yuki into having an asthma attack.   
  
An ambulance pulls up to the house. Tohru murmurs her amazement about the fact that the Sohmas have their own ambulance. Before Yuki can reply to her, he’s interrupted by Akito, who has just elbowed him in the chest in an attempt to barrel out the front door.

 

Yuki grabs Akito’s wrist, and Tohru grabs the other one. “Akito-san, please, you shouldn’t be running right now,” says Tohru, her voice frantic and rising in pitch. 

  
Akito snatches his hand from Tohru’s grasp, screams at her not to touch him, and calls her a bitch. Calls Yuki a traitor as Yuki is grabbing his other arm.   
  
“This is for your own good,” says Yuki. Akito groans and thrashes, tries to head butt Yuki in the chin but doesn’t work up the momentum. His energy dips after that, and he sinks to his knees, bashing them against the floor despite Yuki’s efforts to steady him.   
  
Akito is too busy coughing to reply to Yuki’s statement, but it’s obvious that he sees right through it. This isn’t for Akito’s good. This is for banishing Tohru’s anxiety, this is kicking at the memories of Akito pinning Yuki down in a dark, locked room and punching him in the face until his eyes swelled and his lips bled.   
  
The paramedics exit the ambulance. One, a tall woman with a jet black braid down her back, pushes a wheelchair, which Akito is quickly pressed into. Akito glares at Yuki as if condemning his soul to hell, and then refuses to look at him anymore. He lets the paramedics load him into the ambulance, and they drive away.

 

“Did we do the right thing?” asks Tohru, 

 

“Of course we did,” says Yuki, wreathing his fingers through hers and swallowing hard. _Serves you right serves you right serves you right_ slams around in his brain.

 

_~`~`~_

 

Hatori and Yuki sit across from each other in Hatori’s office. Hatori’s eyes are closed, his hands folded. He breathes out sharply through his nose, then snaps open his eyes to stare down Yuki through his good one.

 

“Yuki,” he says, scratching a label on the manilla folder in front of him. “Are you aware of why your behavior was inappropriate?” 

 

“I am not,” he says, jaw clenched with the force of his lie. “I was told that if Akito has a medical emergency and you’re not around, we should take him to the Sohma Clinic. I followed those instructions. What’s the problem?”   
  
“This was not an emergency. He coughed up a small amount of blood, most likely due to throat irritation. Akito told you explicitly not to call the clinic, and there was no significant worsening of symptoms that would justify your disobedience.” Hatori crosses his arms. Fixes Yuki with a flinty stare. “What made you decide to disobey Akito’s orders?” he asks. “Was it Tohru-kun?”   
  
“It had nothing to do with her!” snaps Yuki. Not because it’s true.   
  
“I hope not,” says Hatori. “If she was involved, Akito might insist that I erase her memory. I don’t want to, but I may not have a choice.”  
  
“You have a choice,” Yuki says bitterly, staring down at his own shaking hands. “We all have choices. We don’t always have to do everything Akito says.”  
  
“Was this truly the best moment to take that particular stance?” asks Hatori. There’s more bite in his voice than Yuki expected. He stands up, hulks over Yuki for half a second before immediately sitting back down. “Think about it carefully, Yuki. Why did you choose _this issue_ to enforce your will over? Why the issue of _Akito’s health_ , and _Akito’s medical care_ , and _Akito’s body?_ Why not take this stand over something that directly concerns you, like your education, or your living situation? Something that, perhaps one could argue, you _actually_ have the right to an opinion about?” 

Hatori rubs the bridge of his nose. 

  
“I didn’t realize it wasn’t an emergency,” says Yuki, staring down at his neatly trimmed nails. His words feel like mouthfuls of gravel. He says, “I was looking after him, like Shigure told me to.” 

 

“You did this for Tohru’s sake,” says Hatori. “She was distressed, so you ignored your own better judgement and did what she wanted. You _forced_ Akito to go to the clinic against his wishes.” 

 

Yuki is tempted to throw his feet onto the desk and scowl at Hatori, like Kyo might, but he stays straight-backed and calm. Stays the version of himself that he has to be when speaking of Sohma family business. 

 

“Why is Akito so against going to the clinic?” asks Yuki.  
  
“That’s none of your concern,” says Hatori.   
  
“How is it not my concern when it’s the reason you’re yelling at me? I did what I thought was right, so how can you possibly expect me to make a different decision next time if I don’t have the information that I need to do that?”  
  
“All you need to know is that if Akito tells you he doesn’t want to go to the clinic, you are not to take him to the clinic.”  
  
“And if he’s dying? What then?”

 

“Then that’s obviously an exception to the rule.”   
  
“And you expect a couple of teenagers with no medical training to make that call?” Yuki thumps his hand on the desk, fury thundering up his spine. So much for staying composed. “If he _were_ dying, and we just left him there, it would be a million times worse, wouldn’t it? And it would be our fault, wouldn’t it? If you expect me not to play it safe, I _have_ to know why.” 

 

Hatori peels the sticker on the manilla folder completely off, then replaces it. He’s quiet for a long time.

 

Finally, he says, “I can’t go into the details. They’re private, and they’re not mine to spread around. I will say that the clinic has treated Akito quite poorly in the past. The people responsible have been fired and replaced, but because of those experiences, Akito wants as little to do with the clinic as possible.”   
  
Yuki laughs, the sound rotten and choked in his throat. “Oh, really?” he says. “Someone treated Akito poorly? How exactly am I supposed to respond to that, Hatori? Am I supposed to feel sorry for him?”

 

“I would think so, yes.”   
  
“Akito doesn’t want our pity, he wants our piety. And he doesn’t deserve either one.” 

 

“I know that Akito has hurt you very badly in the past,” says Hatori. “But you cannot allow your desire for revenge to cloud your judgement. Shigure left Akito with you because he thought he could trust you not to do that. It seems he was mistaken. Don’t worry, Yuki, you won’t be burdened with this responsibility again.” 

 

Acid sizzles in Yuki’s stomach, and his vision swims. The fact that the responsibility _was_ a burden is besides the point. The fact that it was a particularly unfair burden to place on someone with Yuki’s trauma matrix is besides the point. The point is, he’s being ejected from God’s circle. Cast aside, as if he were the cat. 

 

Hatori pulls a packet of cigarettes out of his desk drawer, along with a lighter. He doesn’t light them, but it’s clear that Yuki should take his asthmatic lungs and get lost.   
  
He stands up. “I’m sorry,” he says, gnawing on skin loosed from his bottom lip. “It won’t happen again.”   
  
~`~`~

 

After two weeks, Akito summons Yuki to the main house.

 

On the day he asks for him, rain is sloughing off the clouds in sheets. This is a loyalty test. Yesterday the sky was sparkling with sun, and tomorrow will be similarly pleasant. The question Akito is posing—will you come and see me no matter what?—must be answered with a resounding yes. 

 

Yuki doesn’t want to answer with a yes. First off, he’d come down with Akito’s cold a few days after the visit, and he isn’t quite over it yet. While it isn’t serious, it has triggered a couple of asthma attacks. His breathing is still ragged, still unsteady, and he doesn’t want to worsen things by making the trip.

 

He has to. Sickness is only an excuse if it’s contagious, and Akito has already burned through this particular virus. Akito is already angry. If Yuki blows him off, his punishment will be worse later on.

  
Shigure drives him at Tohru’s insistence, though he complains the whole way about how he has an overdue chapter outline that he needs to be working on. Yuki claps on headphones to tune him out. Rude, he knows, but he doesn’t have the energy to feign politeness. He’s saving all of that for Akito. Shigure goes quiet, flips on the radio. He seems to understand. 

 

“Should I come in, or just stay in the car?” asks Shigure, one hand white-knuckled on the steering wheel. 

  
“What does Akito want you to do?” asks Yuki, unbuckling his seatbelt. 

 

“I’m asking what you want,” says Shigure. Yuki shrugs. Mumbles that it doesn't matter, and exits the car. Shigure gets out with him, clicks an umbrella open over his head.   
  
“Hang on,” says Yuki, scrounging through his pockets to pull out a tissue. He blows his nose, clears his head as well as he can before they approach Akito. 

 

Shigure asks how sick he’s actually feeling. “We can postpone this by a day or so if you’re not up for it,” he says. This isn’t true and both of them know it. Yuki would have to be comatose to get out of seeing Akito when summoned, and even then he’d be chastised upon waking. 

 

After weathering a brief coughing fit, Yuki starts striding toward the Main House. He walks so quickly that Shigure can’t keep the umbrella over his head, and within seconds Shigure is grabbing his wrist and telling him to slow down. 

  
“I just want to get this over with,” says Yuki, gritting his teeth against his cracking voice.   
  
“Fine, but either stay under the umbrella or hold it yourself.” His tone is hard and smooth like steel, but suddenly it turns high and bright and meaningless. “Poor little Tohru-kun would be beside herself if she knew you were risking your health by letting yourself get rained on. I won't tell her, of course, but she’ll find out if you come home looking like a drowned…I don’t want to say _rat_ , that's a bit too on the nose, but…”

 

Yuki snatches the umbrella away from Shigure, and marches toward the entryway. It occurs to him right away that doing so means Shigure gets wet, but he can’t bring himself to correct his mistake. By the time they get to the entrance, Shigure’s hair is plastered to his neck and his forehead with freezing rain.   
  
Yuki wants to apologize, but isn’t sure how to say it. Shigure is smiling. Not visibly angry or even annoyed. Before Yuki can say anything, one of Akito’s attendants appears. Nanako, Yuki thinks she’s called. The daughter of a far-flung relative. All of the attendants are family, because no one can be trusted except family.   
  
“Hello,” she says, voice somber and flat. “Akito-sama will see you momentarily. Yuki-kun, Akito-sama said not to offer you a towel, so my apologies for that…Shigure-san, I’d be happy to offer you one, if you’d like.” 

 

“If I’m not under orders to accept one, I’ll pass,” says Shigure, swiping raindrops off the nape of his neck with his fingers. “Yuki-kun, I’m going to go see Hatori in his office.” 

 

Nanako gestures toward said office, as if Shigure hasn’t been there ten million times. Shigure ignores her, leans in to whisper into Yuki’s ear.  
  
“We’re not allowed in the room, but we’re ready to burst in the instant there’s a problem. If Akito tries to hurt you, scream your head off.”   
  
“I thought it was my job to just take his abuse,” mutters Yuki. Nanako nods toward the room where he’s supposed to meet with Akito. It’s similar to the other rooms in the house—tatami mats and paper walls and calligraphy paintings. It’s open and airy, with birds flitting in and out through the windows. It isn’t the tiny dark closet where Akito used to keep the whips. This means, at least, that Akito doesn’t intend to assault him. But there are vases and books he can throw, and hands he can form into fists. Yuki planned ahead stuck some ice packs in the freezer before he left.

 

Akito is wearing an off-white kimono patterned with random black slashes that look like they were written by a drunk calligrapher. His back is as straight as his scoliosis will allow.   
  
He points sharply at the ground and snaps, “bow down, vermin.” 

 

Yuki bites his own lip, suppresses a sigh, and does as he’s told. He’s about to speak, but Akito hisses, “don’t you dare speak,” so he doesn’t. He stays silent for about three seconds before a coughing fit erupts from his itchy throat.   
  
“I said be quiet!” shrieks Akito, stomping so hard that dust flies off the tatami mat. He presses the heel of his hand into Yuki’s head, grips a handful of his hair and pulls, hard. Yuki shuts his eyes, tries his best to breathe through it and think about something else. He has an essay about Natsume Soseki due next week, and he needs to finish his outline when he gets home. His garden is getting a little wilted, but today’s rain should take care of it. He hopes his heating pad still works, so that he’ll be able to lay down with it tonight post-beating.   
  
He waits for Akito to say something else, do something else besides growling and pulling his hair. His heart thumps against his ribs like a swinging fist. The tatami mats are grinding lines into his knees.  
  
“Akito-sama—”

 

“Shut up, no one said that you could talk!” Akito digs his nails into Yuki’s scalp, then lets go. His nails are dripping blood. Yuki bites his lip and tries not to react. Shigure told him to scream, but he won’t do that, not ever.

“I’m going to talk,” snaps Akito. “You’re going to listen. You’re going to know what you did wrong, and you’re never going to do it again if you know what’s good for you.”   
  
What Yuki wants to say is: _Akito-sama, there’s nothing that you can threaten me with. Akito-sama, I can take a beating and you can’t do anything but hand out beatings. Akito-sama, I have nothing to lose anymore. Akito-sama, go fuck yourself._ But he doesn’t have the nerve to say these things, and they aren’t true, anyway.

 

He says nothing. Akito sits down, abruptly, legs spread out at odd angles. He quickly rearranges himself into a regal kneel.

 

“Did Hatori tell you what happened to me at that clinic?” asks Akito, voice high-pitched and fingers curling into fists. 

 

“No,” says Yuki, fitting the word around a coughing fit. He rubs his throat, wincing. Akito tells him to shut up. Says it was a rhetorical question. That’s not what rhetorical means, but Yuki stays quiet.   
  
“That clinic treated me like subhuman scum,” hisses Akito, pulling at the hem of his kimono. “I am a _God,_ and they couldn’t even treat me like a _person._ That horrendous holy vessel _bitch_ told them to surgically alter my body.” 

 

Yuki bites his lip. Tries to tamp down a spark of empathy he feels for Akito. It’s inappropriate. Akito is God and Yuki is garbage. Akito’s mother is a _holy vessel bitch_ and Yuki’s mother is just a mother who’s bad at her job. 

 

Akito is still talking. Yuki has to listen. Akito says, “my mother didn’t like my body could do, so she told them to take out my _organs_. They were going to. They would have, if I didn’t run off and hide in the fucking _woods_ for three days. I passed out from dehydration and woke up on an operating table. _They cut me open._ I punched one of them in the jaw and said that if they didn’t sew me back up, I’d kill them. Then I passed out again.” 

 

Akito gnaws on his bottom lip. “For a few weeks, I didn’t know if they’d finished the surgery. I was terrified, but I was in too much pain to think much. Finally, I bled, and I knew they hadn’t touched me. That she hadn’t won.”

 

“Bled?” asks Yuki. “Wouldn’t bleeding weeks after the fact mean they _had_ done something to you? You wouldn’t be bleeding for that long if they didn’t hit an organ.”   
  
“Didn’t I tell you to shut up and listen?” Akito asks, his voice a live firecracker, his hand slapping the tatami mat with rage. “You’re just like the butchers from the clinic, you have no respect for my authority as a _living god._ You have no idea what sacrifices I’ve made so that you can live out your pitiful half-existence. _Shut the fuck up.”_  
  
“My sincerest apologies, Akito-sama,” mumbles Yuki, staring at the floor and refusing to meet Akito’s eyes. Trying not to cough again, trying to empty his mind of anything but God’s words. 

 

“They didn’t succeed in their mission,” says Akito, crossing his arms. “You don’t have to understand how I knew. The point is, they listened to her over me. They listened to her over God. They _vivisected me because she told them to._ I fired them all and had them moved off to the Tokyo family property so I’d never have to see them again. I would have had them executed if I could.”   
  
Akito’s eyes glaze over, and he leans briefly to the side, utterly silent. Breathing heavily, beads of sweat trailing down his forehead. Then he gets up again.   
  
He says, “I hired new staff who obey me, but I just barely trust them. Hatori is my doctor. I won’t see anyone else unless it’s an emergency, and it’s only an emergency if I’m unconscious and can’t tell you what to do. I won’t have you forcing me to go to the Sohma Clinic, or anywhere else, against my will. I certainly won’t have your little bitch of a housemaid doing it.”  
  
“Don’t call her that,” says Yuki. The words slice his throat like a razor blade. His pulse goes off like gunshots. He shouldn’t have said that. 

  
“You shouldn’t have said that,” Akito growls, looming over Yuki. Fingers flexing, as if stung. Yuki’s cheek is burning, his head knocked to the side. The pain radiates, pulses. Of course Akito hit him. 

 

“I’ll have Hatori erase her memory,” he says. Of course it’s come to this.   
  
“Tohru just wanted to help,” says Yuki, clutching his cheek and grinding his teeth. Trying not to raise his arms to protect himself from further strikes. “She was panicking, and she made the wrong choice because she didn’t have the information she needed to make the right one. Neither did I. Now we do, so we won’t use the Sohma Clinic anymore. Please don’t punish her for an innocent mistake.” 

 

Eyes wide with fury, Akito shoves Yuki backward with the heel of his hand. “Innocent mistake? You call refusing to listen to a word I said, calling people who physically _forced me_ into an ambulance an innocent mistake? She might not have known the story, but she should have known that was an _obscene_ thing to do. Otherwise she’s an idiot. Either that or she’s evil.” 

 

He pushes Yuki backward again, kicks him in the chest with bare, dirty feet. The impact triggers a coughing fit that makes his already tight chest feel like it’s being squeezed like a tube of toothpaste. 

 

“Use your inhaler!” shouts Akito, wrenching it out of Yuki’s pocket. Shoving it adjacent to his mouth, such that it brushes his lips.   
  
“Can’t I make my own medical decisions?” wheezes Yuki, turning his face away from it. “D-don’t I have that right, just like you do? Aren’t I human, just like you?”

 

He hesitates for a moment. Ducks his chin like he’s about to agree. But then he gets ahold of himself, grabs Yuki’s mouth and shoves the inhaler inside. Fiddles with it until he figures out how to release the medicine. Uses too much, makes Yuki splutter and cough.   
  
“No,” he says, pushing Yuki’s head low to the ground. “It’s not about rights. It’s not about being human It’s about the fact that I am God, and you are my subject.” He pushes harder, so hard that Yuki’s chin scrapes the ground. “I’m going to release my hand now. You’re going to stay like that until Shigure comes to get you.” 

 

Yuki’s eyes stay shut. His heart slams in his chest. He keeps his head down until he can no longer hear Akito’s footsteps, and then he rolls over onto his back and lets salty tears run tracks down his face. 

 

~`~`~

 

For the next week, Yuki expects Akito’s god hammer to descend. Every time the phone rings, he’s sure that Tohru is being called to the main house. That when he sees her in school, she’ll greet him as “Sohma-kun” and won’t remember ever living in his home.   
  
The god hammer never lands. The next time Yuki gets a message from the Main House, it’s to inform him of his assignment for New Year’s banquet preparations. He’s supposed to make window decorations shaped like the zodiac animals.

 

Yuki will make the decorations. He will intentionally make them ugly. 

**Author's Note:**

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